Labor strikes in Senegal compounded political threats to colonial rule in the 1920s

Evidence

In the 192o’s, French officials in West Africa saw signs of unrest all around them. The center for resistance to the regime remained the colony of Senegal, where the first strikes began to compound the problems caused by Diagnism. In 1919, both French and African railway workers at Thies, an important depot for peanuts, went on strike for higher wages. In April 1923, the interim governor general broke up the Senegalese section of the postal association (Comite de 1’ Association des PTT), for requesting the dismissal of a certain French administrator. In 1925, the railway workers again went on strike in Thies, and later that year the workers on the Senegal-Niger line also refused to go to work, because of mistreatment by their overseer. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 553